Travel Hacking for Beginners: How to Travel MORE for LESS

What is Travel Hacking? How to Play the Game, The Cards I Recommend, and How You Can Take the Trip of Your Dreams for Less!

In this post I will first share the backstory of how I got into Travel Hacking. Then, I will outline the credit cards that I have and recommend. I will give a thorough rundown of each of those cards. Next, I will go over some Travel Hacking terms and best practices. Finally, I will explain how I am using credit card points to travel to Europe, and saving THOUSANDS of dollars. I will tell you exactly how much money the trip would have cost, how many points I used instead through Travel Hacking, and how much I saved because of it.

This is a LONG blog post! If you have a specific topic you are looking for, feel free to use the Table of Contents below to jump around 🙂

Seek Trouvaille contains affiliate links and is a member of the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you make a purchase using one of these links, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you.

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Disclaimer: This post is written with American credit cards and credit card benefits in mind. The details here may or may not apply to international credit cards.

Booking.com

Backstory

In the Summer of 2022, one of my best friends from high school got engaged–yay!! She and her Fiancé are both Greek, and so the wedding will be in Greece. “Save some room in y’all’s budget for a European vacay next summer!” she told me. 

Two things happened immediately. 

First, I told my husband, who was INSTANTLY skeptical that we would be able to save enough money in order to go. He tends to be more of a “figure-out-every-detail-then-I’ll-say-yes” person. Meanwhile, I am more of a “say-yes-so-that-there-is-no-other-option-besides-figuring-it-out” person. Makes for an adventurous marriage 😉 

He wasn’t wrong, however. A trip to Europe wasn’t going to be cheap, and we’d need to figure out how to make it work. We are a big Disney couple (cringe, I know) and go to Disney World often. We had also recently returned home from our first trip to Disneyland.

That said, we hadn’t traveled internationally since our honeymoon. I was determined to figure out how to take this “second honeymoon” we deserved after a grueling two years of you-know-what. (spoiler alert: Travel Hacking was the answer!!!)

Second, I began calculating how much PTO I would need, including what I’d need to roll over from the current year. Meaning I was going to have to take LESS PTO days this year in order to be able to take this ONE trip next year. “This sucks,” I thought to myself. It makes me crazy that we have been indoctrinated with working until we are 65 ½ and THEN traveling. Seems so backwards to me. (and, it definitely is). 

BUT, I digress.

I wish I remembered how it happened, but somehow I stumbled upon “Travel Hacking” accounts on Instagram. This wasn’t a COMPLETELY new concept to me. I had certainly heard people talk about using “points” to pay for various things. But I was not expecting how close to “free” you can really go on a trip using these practices.

I carefully studied the various posts on multiple accounts before posing the idea to my husband (who was, you guessed it, skeptical!). Honestly, who could blame him? It was perfect, though, because he had the exact same concerns that all the posts I had been studying for hours had answers for:

• If we paid off the balance every month our credit score would not tank. Now that we have been doing travel hacking for months, I can confirm that our credit scores have actually increased with this “hobby” due to us constantly paying off the balances, as well as our total “available credit” increasing from opening multiple new cards–making our utilization seem much lower.
• There is literally no catch. You spend money on your everyday life and earn points for doing it–at no extra cost to you. You’re spending the money anyway–why not let your hard earned money work for you in return. 
• Would it be confusing to juggle multiple credit cards? Sure, but nothing we couldn’t figure out with some good organization. 
• Yes, the best cards have an annual fee–and in EVERY SINGLE CASE if you use all of the benefits it more than pays for itself–especially in the first year when you are also earning a sign up bonus. 

After a few days of discussion and research, we decided to go for it. The stakes are extremely low, and we didn’t have any large purchases planned anytime soon. So, IF our credit tanked we would’ve had plenty of time to work it back up. (Which, again, our credit has increased because of responsible credit card usage) 🙂

I want to reiterate–Travel Hacking is only for you IF you are responsible with credit cards. Meaning you are able to pay off your balances every month and treat the credit card like a debit card.

The whole point is that Travel Hacking makes travel “free” or much less expensive. So, if you are paying interest, it defeats that purpose! If it has not been made pretty clear, I am DEF not a Dave Ramsey stan–meaning I am pro-credit cards! You just have to be able to use them responsibly and strategically. 🙂 

Don’t use the cards for unexpected large purchases unless you have a plan to pay it off in full. However, if you have saved up cash for something then PLEASE USE YOUR CREDIT CARD first! Get those points!! Put the purchase on your card and then immediately pay it off. We have gotten multiple sign up bonuses this way.

If you use cash for a large purchase like this (or anything for that matter) you are literally leaving free money on the table. Again, it doesn’t cost anything extra to put it on your credit card because you are paying it off and not paying interest, plus you EARN 1x-10x+ points for that purchase to use towards the trip(s) of your dreams. It’s a win-win in my book. 

The Cards We Use for Travel Hacking and Their Benefits

I’d love to preface this section by saying that each travel credit card is ultimately going to work pretty similarly. However, there are nuances between each that may make it a better fit for you depending on your situation! I am going to review the cards that we use and can recommend–but there are multiple other cards on our radar for the future.

Travel Hacking is a pretty personalized hobby, so no two people’s plan will look exactly the same! The trick is learning HOW to play the game so that you can personalize the gameboard to your unique situation.

I recommend using Travel Freely (as the name suggests, it’s free!) to research different cards. Once you start travel hacking, you can also use the site to manage and organize all of your cards. Plus, you can keep track of your sign up bonuses and your 5/24 (more on that later!). 

When considering which card to choose, there are a host of factors to consider. Some of these factors include lounge access, transfer partners, and other benefits the card offers to offset the annual fee. Additionally, each bank has their own “Travel Portal” which usually offers additional benefits if you book travel through their portal.

I will go into detail about all of these concepts–but keep in mind that everyone’s goals and “perfect” credit card plan will be different! I would be more than happy to chat about your goals/situation and help recommend a card for you. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail if you are interested 🙂 

My husband and I are pretty lucky because we live right next to the DFW Airport (a travel lover’s dream, honestly!). Because we live close to a large airport, I wanted a card with lounge access! The cards that offer lounge access have a higher annual fee than the cards that don’t provide lounge access. However, in addition to lounge access, the benefits more than cover the annual fee-if you use them all! 

The 3 cards we considered with lounge access are the Capital One Venture X, the Chase Sapphire Reserve, and the American Express Platinum. While these are all 3 GREAT cards, we ultimately landed on the Capital One Venture X card. Of all the travel cards we have and have researched, it has remained our favorite and the first one we recommend.  

Capital One Venture X

Note: this section is going to be longer than the other cards’ to explain some terminology.

• $395 Annual Fee
  • Of the lounge access card options, this is the lowest annual fee! The AMEX Platinum’s annual fee is $695 and the Chase Sapphire Reserve annual fee is $550.
  • However, if you are interested in either of these two cards don’t let that scare you away–they have amazing benefits! The Venture X just ended up being a better fit for us!
  • Remember, this is a personalized game so it is important to understand all of the benefits for each card.
• At the time of this post, the current Sign Up Bonus, or SUB, is 75,000 Miles after you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months. This is advertised as ~$750 worth of travel, but as you will soon see in this post, it can get you quite a bit more value than that!
  • Note: different cards refer to their rewards earnings with different names. I may use miles and points interchangeably throughout this post but know that it means the same thing! 
• Point Earnings:
  • 2x points on everyday purchases–this was HUGE for us. Most cards have 1x on most purchases and only go to 2-3x on specific categories such as gas, restaurants or groceries. Knowing that no matter what we used the card for we would be receiving at LEAST 2x the points was a huge benefit. For example, if you spend $100 at Target you get 200 points, vs other cards where Target does not count as a grocery store (which is SUPER lame) and your $100 purchase would only earn you 100 points. 
  • 10x points on hotels and rental cars booked through the Capital One Travel Portal (ex: you book a hotel through the portal for $300/night for 2 nights, or $600 total, you get 6,000 points) 
  • 5x points on flights booked through the Capital One Travel Portal (ex: you book a flight for $300 through the travel portal, you get 1,500 points) 
• Major Additional Benefits:
  • $300 ANNUAL travel credit for any travel booked through the Capital One Travel Portal. Meaning you get this credit each year that you keep the card open! You can use the credit either incrementally or all at once. Here are 3 examples for what I mean by that:
    • You book that flight mentioned above for a total of $300. You will receive a statement credit for the full amount of $300.
    • You book that hotel mentioned above for a total of $600. You will receive a statement credit for $300. 
    • Let’s say you book that hotel for just one night and it costs $150. You will receive a statement credit for $150 and then still have an additional $150 credit to apply to other purchases made through the portal in the same year!   
    • IT IS SUPER IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THAT THIS CREDIT ONLY APPLIES IF THE TRAVEL IS BOOKED THROUGH THE PORTAL and will not apply if you book directly through a hotel or airline or a 3rd party booking service. More on what to do in those situations later 😉 
    • Another important note is that the credit does NOT roll over year over year so it is use it or lose it!
  • Complimentary and unlimited Priority Pass Lounge access 
    • Priority Pass is an international program that includes lounges from many airports all over the world. We looked at a handful of the airports internationally that we anticipate traveling to frequently to make sure there was at least one lounge at the airport. They are pretty widespread, but if your “home” airport or the airports you will be traveling to with any regularity don’t have a Priority Pass Lounge, then this card may not be the best option for you! 
  • Complimentary and unlimited Capital One Airport Lounge access 
    • At this time, Capital One has a lounge at DFW airport and plans for lounges at DEN (Denver) and IAD (Washington DC). If your local airport is not one of those three, but still has Priority Pass Lounge options, then I would definitely say that the card is still well worth it. However, if you happen to live close to one of these airports then extra bonus points for you 🙂 
  • $100 TSA Pre-Check or Global Entry credit
    • This is another MAJOR benefit that quite a few travel cards have, especially those with a higher annual fee. If you are not familiar, TSA Pre-Check is the shorter line that you probably see at the Airport when going through security. Acquiring TSA Pre-Check requires a background check and short interview. The TSA Pre-Check option is great for those of you who will mostly be traveling domestically within the US. TSA Pre-Check costs $85. 
    • If you are a frequent international traveler, then Global Entry may be a better option for you! Global Entry INCLUDES TSA Pre-Check, but also gives you expedited customs and immigrations processing when returning back into the US from an international trip. Global Entry also requires a background check and interview, and it costs $100. 
    • Once you acquire one or the other, it lasts for 5 years before you will need to renew it. The Venture X card will cover your application fee each time you have to re-apply! 
    • Keep an eye out for a future blog post with some tips on the application process! If you are considering either option, you will want to apply as soon as possible–even if your travel plans are months out–because the interviews book up extremely far in advance. 
  • 10,000 point Annual Retention Bonus
    • This is exactly what it sounds like! For each year that you keep the card, you will receive 10,000 free points (worth $100+ for travel!). 
  • Travel Purchase Eraser 
    • Not all hotels, flights, excursions, etc are going to be bookable through the Travel Portal. In that instance, Capital One will allow you to “erase” travel purchases using your points–essentially giving you a statement credit. The exchange rate for this is .01 cent per point. For example, if you spend $100 on a hotel outside of the Travel Portal, you will be able to use 10,000 points to “erase” that purchase. You have 90 days to erase purchases, which is nice because you can continue earning points after you’ve made the purchase. Additionally, you don’t have to erase the entirety of the purchase. Using the same example above, if I book a hotel that is $100 but I only have 5,000 points—I can still use these points to cover half of the purchase price of the hotel!
    • NOTE: this only works on purchases that code as TRAVEL like a travel agency, hotel, airline, etc. For example, you can’t use the credit to erase a suitcase purchase from Target. 
  • Other Benefits:
    • Automatic Hertz Car Rental Presidential Status 
    • No Foreign Transaction Fees 
    • Price Drop Protection/Price Matching Guarantee if booked through the Capital One Travel Portal
    • Cell Phone Protection
    • 25,000 mile reward for referring friends or family–this is a HUGE benefit for any credit card, especially if you have a “player 2” (ie, a spouse, significant other, parent, sibling, friend, etc) who is traveling with you and thus able to pool points with you! Note: there is usually an annual maximum number of points you can earn from referrals. For the Venture X it is 100,000 miles, or 4 referrals per card user. 
    • I will speak to the various transfer partners for each card in another section of this post! 

If you’re keeping track of whether or not the annual fee pays for itself, let’s review: 

In the first year: 
$395 Annual Fee
-$300 Annual Travel Credit
-$100 Global Entry/TSA Pre-Check Credit 
-$100 Annual Retention (10,000 points)
-$750 (75,000 point Sign Up Bonus)
= $855 in profit you are getting FOR FREE!! 

In subsequent years (before needing to renew your Global Entry/TSA Pre-Check): 

$395 Annual Fee
-$300 Annual Travel Credit
-$100 Annual Retention (10,000 points)
= $5 minimum in your pocket.

And keep in mind neither of these even take into account the value of the lounge access!  

I think that it goes without saying that the Venture X has very quickly become our favorite Travel Hacking card. My husband and I both have it (I referred him and got that referral bonus!!) and plan on keeping it for the long haul. You will find that many Travel Hackers rotate their cards and close them a year after they open it. Note: you must keep it open at least a year in order to keep your SUB and other benefits you’ve used! While we plan on doing this for some cards, the Venture X has benefits that make it worth keeping. This is a pretty advanced level of Travel Hacking and I will not be talking about it in this post.

If you are still not convinced about the Venture X, Capital One also offers the Venture card. The Venture has very similar benefits at a $95 annual fee. 

The Venture card also gets 2x points on everyday purchases, as well as 5x points on hotels and rental cars booked through the Travel Portal. However, there are no additional point earnings for flights, while the Venture X offers 10x on hotels and rental cars and 5x on flights. 

The Venture does not include Priority Pass Lounge access. However, you can visit the Capital One Lounge 2 times per year. This may be plenty for you if you live near DFW, IAD or DEN and aren’t traveling too frequently. The Venture X card allows you 3 free guests, every visit (space allowing), while the Venture card does not allow any complimentary guests. 

The Venture DOES include the Global Entry/TSA Pre-Check credit. However, the Venture does NOT include the $300 annual travel credit, or the 10,000 point annual retention bonus.

The Venture card could be a great option for you if you only travel once or twice per year. It is also a great card for racking up points in your card rotation strategy (more on that later!) 

Chase Sapphire Preferred

Something to note about Chase is that they have very strict affiliate rules. If you follow Travel Hackers who receive affiliate commission, you will likely see them refer to Chase as “Blue Bank.” Your girl here is #NotSponsored, so there will be no confusion about what I am talking about 🙂

• $95 Annual Fee
• At the time of this post, the current SUB is 60,000 points if you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months; however, they will do promotions where the SUB goes higher. When we got the card, the SUB was 80,000 points. 
• Something worth noting is that this card is the most commonly recommended card for beginner Travel Hackers. 
• Point Earnings:
  • 2x points on regular travel purchases (airline, hotel, etc)
  • 5x points on travel through the Chase Ultimate Rewards Portal
  • 3x points on ONLINE groceries
    • This benefit excludes Target, Walmart, and Club Stores, unfortunately.
  • 3x points on select streaming services (Netflix, Spotify, etc)
  • 3x points on dining
  • 1x points on everything else
• This card does not include airport lounge access
• Major Additional Benefits:
  • With this card, your points are worth 25% more per point if you book through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal! For example, if a flight costs $100, you’d only need 8,000 points (equivalent to $80) if booked through the portal. This is probably the most important benefit this card has. 
  • $50 Annual Ultimate Rewards Hotel Credit
    • Similar to the $300 travel credit through Capital One, Chase offers a $50 per year credit on hotels booked through the Chase Ultimate Rewards Travel Portal. 
  • Complimentary Dash Pass Membership
  • 5x points on Lyft rides 
  • No Foreign Transaction Fees
  • Lost Luggage Reimbursement 

American Express Gold

• $250 Annual Fee
• At the time of this post, the current advertised SUB is 60,000 points if you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months.
  • I say “advertised” because AMEX tends to be a bit tricky. When we got the card, the SUB was a whopping 90,000 points–which is rare! We were also able to get a 6 month 0% financing intro offer which is also incredibly rare and came at a super pivotal time for us because we had a few unexpected health expenses come up. These expenses allowed us to hit the SUB very quickly, but still have 6 months to pay it off with no interest instead of our typical rule of paying the card off in full each month. In full transparency, we probably would not have gotten this card quite yet if it weren’t for both the extremely large SUB and the financing offer. It was on our list, but just not quite part of the plan to get so soon–but flexibility is key when it comes to Travel Hacking 🙂
    • American Express, more than any other company (although they have all been known to do it occasionally), will present you different offers depending on where you search from. It is a bit of a mystery–but, for example, when we got our card I was hoping to be able to use my mom’s referral link to get her some bonus points. However, using her link we were only seeing the 60k SUB and no 0% financing offer. We were also seeing a slightly different offer if we looked on our phone vs on the computer. 
    • This is all just to say that when you are ready to get this card specifically, shop around a bit on different sites/links to make sure you are getting the best deal available, and don’t assume that the first one you find is the only one! 
• Although this card has a pretty high annual fee, it does not offer lounge access or a TSA Pre-Check/Global Entry credit. HOWEVER, the value in this card is the ability to rack up points extremely quickly due to their point earnings distribution.
• Point Earnings:
  • 4X points at restaurants worldwide 
  • 4X points at supermarkets on up to $25,000 of purchases per year (note: like the other cards, Target, Walmart, and Club Stores do not count as supermarkets) 
  • 3X points on flights booked directly with airlines or on AMEX Travel Portal
  • 1X points on all other purchases 
• Major Additional Benefits
  • $120 Dining Credit 
    • Up to $10/month when you use your Gold card at Grubhub, The Cheesecake Factory, Goldbelly, Wine.com, Milk Bar, and select Shake Shacks
  • $120 Uber Cash
    • $10/month to use for rides and UberEats
• A very common misconception with the AMEX Gold and Platinum is that if you have the Platinum you have “made it” (because it has a very expensive annual fee–$695–although as I’m sure you could guess by this point in the post, it easily pays for itself and does include lounge access). However, the smartest Travel Hackers know that the best strategy is to have BOTH the Gold and the Platinum. The Platinum’s point earnings are all centered around travel with 1x points on all other categories. So, the ideal situation would be to use the Gold card for those 4X categories, and then supplement it with the Platinum for Travel Benefits and lounge access.

Long Term Travel Hacking Strategy

As you can see, there are a multitude of benefits offered by each card. A strategy when Travel Hacking is to put ALL your expenses on whichever card you are trying to earn a SUB for. It is extremely important for you to time out your credit card applications correctly. In general, the “rule” is at least 90 days between applications to have the least impact to your credit score. I will admit that I have not always waited 90 days and still have a great credit score. However, in general, if I can wait the full 90 days I prefer to. You can track this on the Travel Freely website. 

Once you hit your SUBs, you can then split your purchases onto the cards with the highest point earnings. 

For example, using the 3 cards we have, groceries would go on the AMEX Gold (4x points). Any of our streaming services on the Chase Sapphire Preferred (5x points). All of our miscellaneous purchases, such as gas and shopping, would go on the Venture X (2x points). 

However, keep in mind your strategy and do what makes the most sense for you! We are traveling to Europe in July, and some of our plans are not bookable through travel portals. In this case, we will charge them to our Venture X, along with most of our other purchases, to use the Purchase Eraser. Because of this, we are charging dining and restaurants to our Venture X more than we might normally if we weren’t trying to specifically rack up those points.

However, as a travel blogger, it is important to me to always have points available to book other trips. So, we do still occasionally charge a date night or grocery run to the AMEX card. Once you are comfortable with your strategy and card’s benefits, it will become clear which card to charge each purchase. 

The 5/24 Rule

Earlier in this post, I alluded to the 5/24 rule. This is a Chase rule that means you will not be approved for a new credit card if you have applied for more than 5 cards in the last 24 months. This rule applies no matter how great your credit might be. Again, this is 5 applications, regardless of their approval status. For most people this is no problem, but for Travel Hackers, who are constantly applying for new cards, it can pose a bit of a challenge.

The main thing to keep in mind is that if you are thinking that the Sapphire Preferred or Reserve card is one you might want to have in your arsenal, it could be wise to apply for those first.

Transfer Partners

Easily the best way to get the most value with Travel Hacking is by using your transfer partners. A transfer partner is an airline or hotel that the credit card company has agreed to share their points with. For example, Air France is a transfer partner for all major credit card companies. This means you can transfer points you have earned from your credit card to Air France’s rewards program, Flying Blue. You can then use those points to book flights through Air France!

In general, the point value of a flight is a much better deal than the cash value. This is usually true directly through the airline AND using the travel portal. Let me explain what I mean: 

Here is a one way flight from DFW to Paris CDG airport. Below you can see that this flight is 40,000 miles +$124 in fees for Premium Economy (!!). Those points as dollars would be worth $400. Accounting for the fees the total “value” of this flight in terms of booking with your miles is $524. Keep in mind that you didn’t pay extra money for those 40,000 miles. You earned them for free from spending money on everyday purchases. 

Below is the EXACT SAME FLIGHT (same day, class, itinerary) which as you can see would cost $2,829 per person: 

Here is the same flight through the Capital One Travel Portal:

As you can see, it would initially seem like a “better” deal than the dollar amount through Air France. However when you use your miles through the Travel Portal your points are worth $.01/point. This means that if the flight costs $1,756, you would need 175,600 miles (and that’s just for Economy!!). Remember the first scenario above: this flight is only 40,000 points + $124 if you transfer your points to Air France (for PREMIUM Economy!). 

Most Transfer Partners transfer at a 1:1 ratio, meaning if the flight is 40,000 miles through Air France, you only need to transfer 40,000 miles from your credit card. (Which saves you a whopping 135,000 points MINIMUM than if you booked with miles through the Travel Portal). However, it is a good idea to keep an eye on this because occasionally there are deals where point values increase! For example, when we booked our flights to Paris there was a 20% promo going on. So, our Capital One points transferred over at a 1:1.2 ratio. This means, in order to get 40,000 Air France Miles, we only had to transfer 32,000 Capital One Miles. 

Please make sure that you have confirmed everything before transferring your miles. Once you have transferred your miles from your credit card to the rewards program, you will NOT be able to transfer them back or to another rewards program.

In addition to airlines, each credit card company has a handful of hotel transfer partners as well.

Not all transfer partners have a 1:1 transfer ratio, however. It is tricky to keep track of which partners go with which card and what their usual transfer ratio is. SO I have created a handy dandy travel hacking cheat sheet that I’d love to send you! Just drop your email below and it will be in your inbox lickity split 🙂

Booking.com

So, what does this all look like in practice?! What is the total cost of our two week Europe vacation going to be?! How did we do it?!

The short answer is very thorough planning, but keep reading if you want the long answer! If you just want a quick breakdown of the points we spent vs the dollar amount it would have cost, click here for a summary chart! If you want to get in the weeds with me, keep reading!

I am going to list out exactly what we did step by step. However, please keep in mind there are a million ways to skin this cat! In an ideal world, we would’ve had a little more time to accrue our points before we needed to begin booking things. However, because we were 1 year out from the trip when we started planning, and had very specific dates we had to hit, we needed to start booking ASAP. We likely would’ve been able to save even MORE if we had had more point accrual time. This is definitely a long-term strategy overall! 

Before I get too far into this I want to preface by saying that there is ABSOLUTELY a way to do this hobby and travel for completely free by Travel Hacking. Our situation was tricky because of the specific travel dates we had to hit to go to my friend’s wedding! The most successful Travel Hackers (at least in terms of traveling for 100% free) are able to be fairly flexible with their timing and location in order to get the absolute best deal possible. Even though we did not have that flexibility, we are still saving THOUSANDS of dollars on a trip we have certainly not skimped on! 

Another quick note in the interest of being fully transparent–my husband and I have always prioritized traveling, so we have a monthly budget for travel. In the following paragraphs you will notice that we pay fees and occasionally pay for affordable flights, etc in the interest of hitting a SUB. We are able to do this because of our monthly allocated budget for travel, but understand that this would not be realistic for everyone.

Another reason we had to do this is because of what I just mentioned about not having quite as long as we would’ve liked to accrue points. Now that we have discovered Travel Hacking, the amount we save each month for travel has dramatically decreased because we are able to get so much value out of our points from making our everyday purchases. 

Of the three cards we discussed above, we only used the Venture X and the Chase Sapphire Preferred for this trip. We got the AMEX Gold card because of that unexpected expense and the promo that allowed us to have 6 months with 0% financing. We will use the points earned in this SUB for Travel Hacking a future trip! 🙂

Okay, now let’s get into the weeds!! 

Planning and Travel Hacking Europe Step One: Paris

The first thing we did was determine where we wanted to go. If you read my disclaimer blurb above, you will know that if your goal is to travel for 100% free and you are not set on a specific location, it is sometimes best to look at your credit card’s travel portal, your favorite transfer partners websites, etc in order to find the best deal. However, we had a pretty specific trip in mind so we made our points go as far as we could within those parameters 🙂 

As you may or may not already know from reading my About Page or following me on Instagram, I am very passionate about the French language and culture because I studied French for 13 years. In addition to studying French, my birthday also happens to be on French Independence Day, or Bastille Day, July 14th.

It has always been a DREAM of mine to be in Paris on my birthday to celebrate during the countrywide Bastille Day celebrations. With this in mind, and with my birthday being a week before my friend’s wedding, I knew that I wanted to start our trip in Paris. As you may also know if you follow me on Instagram, I am a HUGE “Disnerd.” So, not only will I be spending my Birthday/Bastille Day in Paris, I will be spending it in Disneyland Paris. This is literally a lifelong dream and Bucket List goal come true!!

ANYWAY ALL THIS TO SAY, we needed flights from DFW to Paris. We found very similar options to those we looked at above.

We needed 80,000 miles total to cover my and my husband’s Premium Economy seat on those Air France flights. This cost was covered with just one Capital One Venture X Sign Up Bonus (75,000 miles). Keep in mind that in addition to earning your SUB, you will earn points on top of that from your regular purchases. Meaning, even if every purchase you made on your Venture X card was only a 2X category, you would still have 8,000 points on top of the 75,000 sign up bonus after spending the $4,000 SUB threshold.

However, as I previously mentioned, we were able to transfer our points during a 20% promo, so we only had to transfer 64,000 Capital One points to Flying Blue in order to get our full 80,000 miles and book the flights! The total fees for this flight for both of our tickets were $250. If we had booked the exact same flights with cash, the cost would have been $6,500. We have ALREADY saved $6,250–just with our flights over to Europe.

**jaw drop** 

Once we had used my Capital One Venture X card’s sign up bonus, my husband applied for the Chase Sapphire Preferred. We moved all of our expenses to that card in order to hit that SUB of 80,000 points.

One of my first EVER credit cards was the Chase Freedom Unlimited. I got this card in college, and while I don’t recommend it for Travel Hacking, it is worth mentioning that if you do have another credit card within the Chase family, you are able to transfer your points to another card. So, I was able to call and transfer about 6,000 points to my husband’s account. Which isn’t a ton, but worth about $60 so not nothing either! Plus, it’s being put to a lot better use in Travel Hacking Cards than it ever would in my long lost credit card that never gets used.

In addition to our flights to Paris, we would also need to book our hotel in Disneyland Paris, along with our park tickets (which are generally sold as a package).

Disney is notoriously tricky for Travel Hacking. However, we are planning to use Venture X points to “erase” the cost of our stay. We paid a $80 deposit using the Chase Sapphire Preferred card since we were trying to hit the SUB. The remaining balance isn’t due until a week or so before we go. We then have 90 days from that point to “erase” the purchase–which will ultimately cost about 50,000 points.

NOTE: As mentioned previously, you can only erase Travel Purchases using your Venture X card. We paid our deposit with the Chase card, but will pay our remaining balance with the Venture X so we can erase it! There are quite a few lovely Travel Hackers out there who specialize in Disney Travel Hacking. Most of them recommend the Venture or Venture X card for Disney Travel Hacking due to having that ability to erase the purchase. 

While we are starting our trip in Paris, we both visited Paris when we studied abroad in college (but this will be our first time to visit together!). So, we didn’t need to spend more than a couple days there. After Paris, we decided that we wanted to travel to the Amalfi Coast of Italy. Neither of us have ever been before!

This means that we needed flights from Paris to Naples, Italy. 

Planning and Travel Hacking Europe Step Two: Italy

If you recall above, we used 64,000 of our Venture X miles to book our flights from Dallas to Paris. So, we had 11,000 points remaining of our SUB, plus the points we had accrued from just using the card. I believe at this point we had about 20,000 points. We were able to find flights from CDG to NAP for 17,500 miles plus $33 in fees. The cost of this flight was $191. We went ahead and just paid for my husband’s flight with dollars since we were trying to hit the SUB on his Chase Sapphire Preferred and we only had enough points for one flight. 

Honestly, this transfer value is not as great as what we normally look for (if you consider the dollar value of the miles at $175 + the $33 in fees it is $208 while the actual cost of the flight is $191). However, we earned these points for free and REALLY needed to book these flights because they were smaller planes/flights. There is no right or wrong in Travel Hacking. You just have to do what is best for you and, as long as you find value in your plan, it is a perfect plan.

Our flight to Naples will land very late at night, so we needed a hotel to spend the night in Naples before taking the ferry to Sorrento the next day! We found a hotel close to the airport on the Capital One Travel Portal for $94. We booked this hotel, using $94 of my $300 annual Venture X travel credit! 

As mentioned above, we will take a ferry from Naples to Sorrento. You are also able to take a taxi or a train, but we wanted to take the scenic route! While we plan to put the ferry tickets on our Venture X cards, it will be interesting to see if these code as “travel” purchases and thus are able to be erased–stay tuned! Or please e-mail me if you know the answer to this mystery 🙂 

Once in Sorrento, we will be staying at a hotel near the city center and also close to the ferry for convenient access to the other areas of the Amalfi Coast. We chose to stay in Sorrento over Positano or Amalfi because it is SLIGHTLY less crowded and expensive than the other areas of the Amalfi Coast. It is also extremely ideally located to travel to other areas such as Capri and Pompeii. There are a few reasons why we chose not to book a hotel through the Capital One Travel Portal:

1. First, we had already used, or planned on using, our SUBs for our flights. We knew that there would be quite a few things on the trip that we would want to erase, so we are currently trying to accrue and save as many Venture X miles as possible. 
2. Second, I personally wanted to stay in a more “local feeling” hotel as opposed to a Marriott or a Hilton or another chain hotel. I couldn’t tell you why–and I am sure I will stay in these hotel chains MANY times in my travel journey and absolutely love it. Multiple of them are actually on my Bucket List. But, for whatever reason, I was excited about staying somewhere that I could ONLY stay in Sorrento. Plus, regardless, we did not have enough points to transfer to a hotel transfer partner at the time that we were wanting to book the hotel. I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but this is another reason why the longer you have to plan your trip, nail your credit card plan, and accrue/save points–the better! 
3. Third, in order to purchase a hotel through the Travel Portal, you have to pay for it in its entirety up front (no deposit or reserve now, pay later, etc). If you have already saved the money for it, then this is a great strategy because you will get the 10x points (or whatever the point earnings is for the card you are using) and then can immediately pay it off. However, we had not saved the whole amount and did not have enough points at the time to book it directly through the travel portal with points. By booking directly through the hotel we did not even have to pay a deposit to reserve the room. This also allows us months to save up Venture X points to erase the purchase of the hotel, keeping in mind that we will also have 90 days to erase the purchase from the day our card is charged!  

We booked a “Deluxe Balcony Sea View” room for 5 nights and added on a “Relax Voyage” in the hotel’s spa just for funzies and because we felt like treating ourselves. The total cost for our 5 night stay (including the spa experience) will be $1,665. Our goal/intention is to save enough points between now and 90 days after our trip to be able to erase that purchase! (166,500 points total)

We have accrued Venture X points the following ways (in addition to just earning points regularly with our everyday purchases): 

• I referred my husband to his own Venture X card and earned 25,000 points for the referral 
• We put all of our expenses on this card until we hit the SUB and earned another 75,000 points 
• We have also been able to refer two other family members to the Venture X card which earned us 25,000 points each for a total of 50,000 points (shameless plug, but I would genuinely not recommend this card so highly if I didn’t truly love it! Plus I’m not even #sponsored, haha. My family who we referred to the card are actually the ones who encouraged me to write a blog post about Travel Hacking because I have helped them learn so much and travel for free/much less than if they didn’t use points/the Venture X card! If I can do this you can do this!) 
• You are able to apply for a new Capital One credit card every 6 months. The plan is for me to apply for the regular Venture card shortly after the new year in order to earn another 75,000 point SUB. I will then be able combine the points from my husband’s Venture X card, and this Venture card onto my Venture X card so all of our points are in the same place to erase applicable purchases from our trip.
• All of those points added up already gets us to 225,000 points–which does not even take into account the additional points we will earn from getting at least 2X points for every dollar spent with the card. However, the 225,000 points will more than cover our hotel (166,500 points) and even leave us with 58,000 points to erase our Disney hotel in Paris. 

I will make a separate post for why exactly we picked the our hotel in Sorrento as well as our entire itinerary for our stay in the Amalfi Coast, but hopefully this gives you a good idea of how we are going to be able to accrue the points leading up to our stay. This is definitely the largest single item we will be using points for! 

Planning and Travel Hacking Europe Step Three: Greece

After 5 days in the Amalfi Coast, we will travel to Corfu, Greece for my friend’s wedding! We will be taking a ferry from Italy to Corfu, but once we are in Corfu we will be staying at a CUTIE b&b I found through Booking.com. Hotels in Corfu are SUPER reasonably priced. The B&B is only $342 for 3 nights, and doesn’t require any kind of deposit up front. We decided to go ahead and charge this to the Venture X card since it is such a reasonable cost, and we will plan to erase this purchase as well. Plus, there were a pretty limited number of hotels available through the travel portal in the area we needed to be in!

That being said, there are some REALLY beautiful hotels all around Corfu (which is a pretty large island!) that we definitely would have considered if we weren’t wanting to be in a very specific area close to the wedding venue! We are staying in Corfu Town which is also very walkable and full of history and culture. 

Booking.com

Planning and Travel Hacking Europe Step Four: Back to Paris then Home to DFW (sad face)

While we are flying into Paris at the beginning of our trip, we are going directly to Disneyland Paris and then from Disneyland Paris directly to Naples. So, we did not have any time in Paris proper during the first half of our trip to Europe. I really wanted to have at least half a day to a day in Paris, so we decided to fly back to Paris from Corfu after the wedding before flying back home to DFW. 

On the Capital One Travel Portal, we found flights from Corfu to Paris for $360 total for us both. My husband’s $300 annual travel credit to covered all but $60 of the cost. We will arrive back in Paris by lunchtime and have the rest of the afternoon explore before staying our last night in Europe. We found an AMAZING hotel through the Capital One Travel Portal with a view of the Eiffel Tower for $203. The remainder of my $300 annual travel credit was able to cover this stay! (since we had only used $94 of the credit for our hotel in Naples). 

I bet you’ve caught yourself thinking throughout this post, “jeez she uses this Venture X card a ton, is she ever going to use the Chase Sapphire Preferred?!” and NOW IS THE TIME! 

We used the SUB from my husband’s Chase Sapphire Preferred card (80,000 points + $418 in fees) to book our flights home in Premium Economy from Paris to DFW. These tickets would have cost $6596 if we booked them using dollars. 

We are excited to dive into the Chase card for future trips, but for this trip the Capital One card has been the star player. Something else worth noting is that with the Capital One card your points hit your account a day or two after you make a purchase (including referral points!), but with both the Chase and American Express cards you do not get your points until the statement cuts.

Again, this would not be a huge deal if we had started this endeavor even a few months earlier, but since we basically had to book flights and such as soon as we had the points to do so, being able to book it immediately, as opposed to waiting for the statement to cut, was valuable to us. 

In addition to the flights and hotels, we are budgeting additional points on our Venture X cards for booking excursions and other various travel expenses leading up to and during our trip. 

As promised, here is a chart which summarizes the amount of money things would have cost in cash vs how much we paid with points+fees: 

Dollar vs Point Comparison Table

EXPENSE	$$ COST	POINTS SPEND	$ SPENT (FEES, TAXES, DEPOSIT, ETC)	NOTES
Flight from DFW to CDG (Paris) for 2 people	$6,500	80,000	$250
Disneyland Paris	$575	50,000	$85
Flight from CDG to APF (Naples) for 2 people	$391	17,500	$212	Purchased one with points + fees, one with $$
Naples Hotel	$94	0	$0	94/300 travel credit on my Capital One card
Sorrento Hotel	$1,665	166,5000 (budgeted)		Not yet spent as of blog publish, but budget/planned
Corfu Hotel	$342	0	$342	So affordable, paid with cash to work towards a SUB
Flight from  CFU (Corfu) to CDG for 2 people	$360	0	$60	$300 Travel Credit on husband’s Capital One Card
Paris Hotel	$203	0	$0	Remainder of my Capital One Travel Credit
Flight from CDG to DFW for 2 people	$6,596	80,000	$418
Tours & Experiences Budget	$1,000	100,000 (budgeted)	$0	Not yet spent as of blog publish, but budget/planned
TOTAL $$:	$17,726		$1,367	$16,701 IN SAVINGS

Conclusion: Travel Hacking WILL Change Your Life!

Thank you SO much if you have made it this far! I know this is a lot to digest, and it is overwhelming the first time you take it all in. Plus, maybe you have a skeptical partner, like me. 😉 I promise that once you get going and after you get your first sign up bonus redeemed for travel–you will feel invincible! 

There are soooooo many other things I could share, and probably will in future posts! I would love to hear from you if you have any additional questions about what is in this post, and what other questions you have about Travel Hacking in general! I always want you to feel like you are getting the maximum amount of value from my posts, so I would love to hear how I can best serve you in future content 🙂 

Ultimately, what I hope that you gleaned from this post is that you do not have to be rich and famous to take INCREDIBLE trips that might have felt out of reach before. If you have a passion for traveling and a Bucket List a mile long, let’s make it work! You can achieve your travel dreams and not break the bank, and I would love to help you get there. 

If you found value in this post and would like me to send you one of my referral links, you would make my day! Just shoot me an email, and I would be happy to send it your way.  

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Travel Planner Freebie!

If planning and organizing a trip sounds incredibly overwhelming to you, check out my free Travel Planner to help you organize all of your trip info! It includes budget tracking, itinerary pages, link pages, outfit planners, inspirational quotes, and, of course, a point tracking page for your Travel Hacking organization 😉

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